The present invention relates to magnetic resonance imaging or "MRI" and particularly to a personal computer or "PC" based control system and method for an MRI scanner.
Presently, different MRI scanner control systems require control systems which are different from each other. Various MRI providers usually use custom hardware for control of their particular scanner. For instance, different device drivers and related I/O hardware cards are used to interact with, manage and control certain external sub-systems such as the magnet, the radio frequency or "RF" transceiver and the patient handling sub-system.
By way of example only, certain disadvantages are inherent in the present systems available in the MRI industry. For instance, with proprietary hardware based control systems, pulse programmers have to adjust pulse sequence in accordance with the observed affects from the specifics of the hardware of the I/O sub-system. Thus, each pulse sequence has to be adjusted to account for "rippling" effects from the real time system due to the interaction between the hardware and the software. As another example, pulse sequences for imaging have to be specified mathematically and tested on scanner equipment for adjustment to system characteristics. In addition, current MRI scanner control systems are not capable of being used in different systems such as where there may be a different MRI magnet. As such, for each different MRI magnet, a proprietary and unique MRI scanner control system is required. Finally, by way of example, the resulting image slice from an MRI scan cannot, in real time, be sharpened, smoothed and contrasted in order to increase the resolution of the selected image.
Thus, it is desirable to have a system and method for controlling an MRI scanner which is capable of being used with different types of MRI scanners and related equipment. It also is desirable to have a personal computer based software control system and method for controlling the MRI scanner systems. Additionally, it is desirable to have an MRI scanner control system wherein an operator can interactively and in real time sharpen, smooth and contrast to adjust the selected image using a pointing device such as an electronic mouse and where the adjusted image can be compared to an unmodified image for further control of same.